CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
CONTEMPLATING GOD
IN HIS IMAGE
REFORMED BY THE GIFTS OF GRACE
Since we can contemplate the First Principle not only by passing through ourselves but also in ourselves, and since the latter contemplation is superior to the former, this mode of consideration occupies the fourth stage of contemplation.
It seems amazing when it has been shown that God is so close to our souls that so few should be aware of the First Principle within themselves.
Yet the reason is close at hand: for the human mind, distracted by cares, does not enter into itself through memory; clouded by sense images, it does not turn back to itself through intelligence; allured away by concupiscence, it does not turn back to itself through desire for inner sweetness and spiritual joy.
Thus lying totally in these things of sense, it cannot reenter into itself as into the image of God.
2. When one has fallen down, he must lie there 1.
Cf. Ps. 40:9; Is. 24:20.
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unless someone lend a helping hand for him to rise .
So our soul could not rise completely from these things of sense to see itself and the Eternal Truth in itself unless Truth, assuming human nature in Christ, had become a ladder, restoring the first ladder that had been broken in Adam.
Therefore, no matter how enlightened one may be by the light of natural and acquired knowledge, he cannot enter into himself to delight within himself in the Lord2 unless Christ be his mediator, who says:
I am the door.
Ifanyone enters through me , he will be saved; and he will go in and out and willfind pastures . 3
But we do not draw near to this door unless we believe in him, hope in him and love him.
Therefore, if we wish to enter again into the enjoyment of Truth as into paradise, we must enter through faith in, hope in and love of Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and men ,
who is like the tree of life in the middle ofparadise . 5
Ps.
36:4.
3. John 10:9.
1 Tim. 2:5.
5. Gen.
2:9; Apoc.
22:2; cf. Bonaventure's The Tree of Life, prol., 1-5, pp.
119-122.
THE SOULSJOURNEY INTO GOD
. The image of our soul, therefore, should be clothed with the three theological virtues, by which the soul is purified, illumined and perfected. 6 And so the image is reformed and made like the heavenly Jerusalem and a part of the Church militant which, according to the Apostle, is the offspring of the heavenly Jerusalem. For he says: That Jerusalem which is above is free , which is our mother (Gal. 4:26). The soul, therefore, believes and hopes in Jesus Christ and loves him, who is the incarnate, uncreated and inspired Word the way , the truth and the life (John 14:6). When by faith the soul believes in Christ as the uncreated Word and Splendor of the Father, 7 it recovers its spiritual hearing and sight: its hearing to receive the words of Christ and its sight to view the splendors of that Light. When it longs in hope to receive the inspired Word, it recovers through desire and affection the spiritual sense of smell. When it embraces in love the Word incarnate, receiving delight from him and passing over into him through ecstatic love, it recovers its senses of taste and touch. Having recovered these senses, when it sees its Spouse and hears, smells, tastes and embraces him, the soul can sing like the bride the Canticle of Canticles, which was composed for the exercise of contemplation in this fourth stage.
No one grasps this except him who receives (Apoc. 2:17), since it is more a matter of affective experience than rational consideration. For in this stage, when the inner senses are restored to see the highest beauty, to hear the highest harmony, to smell the highest fragrance, to taste the highest sweetness, to apprehend the highest delight, the soul is prepared for spiritual ecstasy through devotion, admiration and exultation according to the three exclamations in the Canticle of Canticles. The first of these flows from the fulness of devotion, by which the soul becomes like a column ofsmoke from aromatic spices of myrrh andfrankincense
(Cant.
3:6). The second arises from intense admiration, by 6. These are the classical three stages of the spiritual life or the threefold dynamics of spiritual growth; cf. Bonaventure's treatment of them in De triplici via.
Cf. John 1:1; Heb.
1:3.
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which the soul becomes like the dawn , the moon and the sun (Cant.
6:10), according to the progressive stages of enlightenment that lift up the soul to gaze in admiration upon its Spouse. The third arises from the superabundance of exultation, by which the soul, overflowing with delights of the sweetest pleasure, leans wholly upon her beloved (Cant.
8:5).
4. When this is achieved, our spirit is made hierarchical 8 in order to mount upward, according to its conformity to the heavenly Jerusalem which no man enters unless it first descend into his heart through grace, as John saw in the Apocalypse. 9 It descends into our heart when our spirit has been made hierarchical— that is, purified, illumined and perfected— through the reformation of the image, through the theological virtues, through the delights of the spiritual senses and through mystical ecstasies. Our soul is also marked with nine levels when within it the following are arranged in orderly fashion: announcing, declaring, leading, ordering, strengthening, commanding, receiving, revealing and anointing. These correspond level by level to the nine choirs of angels. In the human soul the first three of these levels pertain to human nature; the next three, to effort and the last three, to grace. Having attained these, the soul, by entering into itself, enters the heavenly Jerusalem, where beholding the choirs of angels, it sees in them God, who dwells in them and performs all their operations. Hence Bernard says to Eugene that uGod loves in the Seraphim as charity, knows in the Cherubim as truth, is seated in the Thrones as 10. equity, reigns in the Dominations as majesty, rules in the Principalities as principle, guards in the Powers as salvation, acts in the Virtues as strength, reveals in the Archangels as light, assists in the Angels as piety." 10 From all this, God is seen as all in all (1
Influenced by the Pseudo-Dionysius, Bonaventure sees the soul ordered in a hierarchical pattern. As developed in the present chapter, the soul is hierarchical in its threefold act of purgation, illumination and perfection. In a larger context, the hierarchical soul reflects the hierarchical patterns in the Trinity, the angelic choirs and the Church.
Cf. Apoc. 21:2.
Bernard of Clairvaux, De consideratione , V, c.
5, no.
12. This is addressed to Pope Eugene III; Bernard does not explicitly name the choirs of angels in this text, but in the previous passage.
THE SOUL'SJOURNEY INTO GOD
Cor.
15:28) when we contemplate him in our minds, where he dwells through the gifts of the most abundant charity.
For this stage of contemplation the study of the divinely imparted Scripture is especially helpful just as philosophy is for the preceding stage. For Sacred Scripture deals principally with the works of reparation. Hence it treats mainly of faith, hope and charity by which the soul is reformed, and most especially of charity. Of charity the Apostle says: The aim of the commandment is charity insofar as it comes from a pure heart and a good conscience , and a faith that is notfeigned (1 Tim.
1:5). Charity is the fulfillment ofthe Law (Rom.
1 3:10), as the same Apostle says. And our Savior asserts that the whole Law and the prophets depend on these two commandments: love of God and of our neighbor
(cf. Matt. 22:40). These two are signified in the one Spouse of the Church, Jesus Christ, who is at the same time our neighbor and God, brother and lord, king and friend, the Word uncreated and incarnate, our maker and remaker, the Alpha and Omega
(Apoc.
1:8; 21:6; 22:1 3), who is also the supreme Hierarch, who purifies, illumines and perfects his spouse, that is, the entire Church and every holy soul.
All Sacred Scripture, therefore, deals with this Hierarch and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. By Scripture we are taught that we should be purged, illumined and perfected according to the threefold law handed down in it: the law of nature, of Scripture and of grace; or rather, according to its three principal parts: the law of Moses which purifies, prophetic revelation which illumines, and the gospel teaching which perfects; or especially, according to its threefold spiritual meaning: the tropological, which purifies one for an upright life; the allegorical, which illumines one for clarity of understanding; and the anagogical, which perfects through spiritual ecstasies and sweet perceptions of wisdom. This takes place through the three previously mentioned theological virtues and the spiritual senses which have been reformed and the three abovementioned ecstatic stages and hierarchical acts of the soul, by
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which our soul enters back into its interior, there to behold God in the splendor ofthe saints (Ps. 109:3). There, as in a chamber, the soul sleeps and rests (Ps. 4:9), while the Bridegroom entreats that she be not awakened until she pleases to come forth (cf. Cant.
2:7).
7. These two middle stages, through which we enter into the contemplation of God within us as in mirrors of created images, are like the two middle wings of the Seraph spread out for flight. 11
Through them we can understand that we are led to divine things through the rational soul's naturally implanted faculties in their operations, relationships and habitual scientific knowledge, as is apparent in the third stage.
Likewise, we are led through the reformed faculties of the soul, that is, through the infused virtues, spiritual senses and mystical ecstasies, as is apparent in the fourth stage.
Moreover, we are led by the hierarchical operations, that is, the purifying, illumining and perfecting of human souls; and by the hierarchical revelations of Sacred Scripture given to us by the angels, as the Apostle says, that the Law was given by angels in the hand ofa mediator . 12
And, finally, we are led 11.
Cf. Isa. 6:2.
12.
Gal.
3:19.
THE SOULSJOURNEY INTO GOD
through the hierarchies and hierarchical orders which are to be arranged in our soul as in the heavenly Jerusalem.
Filled with all these intellectual illuminations, our mind like the house of God is inhabited by divine Wisdom; it is made a daughter of God, his spouse and friend; it is made a member of Christ the Head, his sister and coheir; it is made a temple of the Holy Spirit, grounded on faith, built up by hope and dedicated to God by holiness of mind and body.
All of this is accomplished by a most sincere love of Christ which is pouredforth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, 13 without whom we cannot know the secret things of God.
No one can know the things of man except the spirit of man which is in him; so no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God. 14
Let us, therefore, be rooted and grounded in charity so that with all the saints we may be able to comprehend what is the length of eternity, the breadth of liberality, the height of majesty and the depth of discerning wisdom. 15
13. Rom.
5:5.
14.
1 Cor. 2:11.
15.
Eph. 3:17-18.